The sound waves reverberate in the chest, with a rhythmic “thump, thump, thump.”

Deaf or hearing, passersby feel the police cruiser before they see it speeding, lights flashing, along Florida Avenue Northeast near Gallaudet University. It is hard to ignore. The rumbler siren, often a tool for grabbing the attention of distracted drivers, is used in this neighborhood to alert Gallaudet’s 1,900 deaf and hard-of-hearing students of an approaching police car.

Gallaudet University’s 99-acre campus in Northeast Washington is surrounded by a tall black wrought-iron fence that, from the outside, looks imposing. From inside, the barrier makes the campus feel comfortably sequestered from the hustle of Washington. In recent years, nearby neighborhoods of H Street, NoMa and Union Market right next door have brought an influx of mostly hearing people with new development around the campus.

Photo by Josephine Peterson / Gallaudet opened its doors in 1864. It began with the idea to be “barrier-free for deaf and hard of hearing students.”

Many members of the university community expressed complicated feelings about what the shifting world beyond Gallaudet’s gates means for the university. There is excitement about more buildings with deaf-friendly architecture and the possibility of a community where more people speak American Sign Language ASL, even if they are not deaf or hard-of-hearing. But what if the hearing community’s increased presence diminishes the unique ASL culture of the campus?

The area near the New York Avenue / Gallaudet Metro Stop has a rich history. From the 1064 race riots that occurred at the church nearby to the founding of the school that would become Gallaudet University,the neighborhood’s history speaks to its diversity.

New York Avenue runs from route 95 to the White House, connecting Washington, D.C. to the rest of the East Coast. The corner of New York and Florida Avenue is a crossroads within the city. One or two miles in any direction will take you to H Street, U Street, Eastern Market, Adams Morgan, or the U.S. Capitol.

A few blocks up Florida Avenue, in the direction of H Street and Eastern Market, you will find one of Washington’s many neighborhoods in transition. The logo on the trashcan calls the neighborhood, “NoMa,” short for “North of Mass Avenue.”

A sign near the metro station designates the area as a future home of Harris Teeter. A billboard on a vacant lot between a Burger King and a Chinese carryout promises, “Pretty soon you won’t even recognize the place.”

Kevin’s fraternity brothers used to joke that he had gotten a business degree just to wash cars – until he told them about the money he made. Seven years ago, he decided he was happier in the ’hood than on the Hill, so he sold his regular car wash near Eastern Market and invested in a mobile operation.

Now, you can find him and his crew of “misfits” on the corner of 5th Street and Florida Avenue Northeast, seven days a week from dawn till dusk. His only advertisements are his immaculate Escalade, which he washes every day, and the continuous hum of the power washer.

In the past few years, Kevin has seen this Northeast Washington neighborhood change from an open-air drug market to an up-and-coming annex of Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, his employees have made their own transitions, giving up criminal pasts and living up to new responsibilities.

Kevin says that gentrification has had little effect on his business, except that police officers – who he says used to pat them down and search their vans for guns and drugs – now come by their off-duty hours for a wash and a wax. The customers keep coming just as they used to, and Kevin and his misfits keep ignoring the strange looks from passersby who are quick to make assumptions based on how they dress and act.

Meredith Peruzzi can define herself easily, most of the time. She’s female, 28 years old, married, and a resident of Virginia. Labels get tricky, though, when you ask her whether she identifies as hearing or deaf. Peruzzi, a junior at Gallaudet University, said she struggles with this question frequently.

“I’ve always been a part of the deaf community,” said Peruzzi, who studied as a hearing student at Gallaudet before a scuba-diving accident left her hearing-imparied. “Everyone says it’s ironic that I was the most prepared for a hearing impaired life, and that I ended up deaf.”

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln officially signed the bill that created Gallaudet University. However, the school had started approximately ten years earlier when Amos Kendall donated two acres of land to create a school for the deaf and blind. Over the years, Gallaudet’s student body has grown in size. However, the mission to serve as a cultural center for the deaf has remained strong. According to Peruzzi, there is a definite split in the deaf community — either you went to Gallaudet or you did not.

Beyond Gallaudet, the deaf community as a whole, a divide based on a form of reverse discrimination exists, said Judy Fask, director of the deaf studies program at Holy Cross. Fask said hearing students in the deaf studies program are often taken aback that “audism,” or discrimination against the hearing, exists. Rather than sending deaf-studies students abroad, Fask sends her students to Gallaudet.

“Sending our students to Gallaudet puts them at a disadvantage,” Fask said, “By having them experience the language barrier, they can appreciate being in the minority.”

A Gallaudet spokeswoman, however, said there is no discrimination against hearing students and that information about hearing status is only collected for so the data is on hand. “It’s just for statistics, nobody really looks at the records” said Karen Evans of Gallaudet media relations.

Peruzzi agreed that there is not supposed to be a difference between hearing and deaf students – at least not officially. However, for the deaf community, “there is some sense of you’re in our world now,” she said.

This is especially ironic since Peruzzi began signing at the age of four, when she was hearing. Her babysitter was hearing impaired, and Peruzzi picked up American Sign Language as a means of communicating with her. Although she has siblings, none of them expressed the same interest in sign language.

Peruzzi graduated high school a year early and headed off to McDaniel College in Maryland. McDaniel, however, did not seem to fit her. After some time off, Peruzzi decided to enroll in Gallaudet University as a hearing student – upon enrolling at Gallaudet, she checked a box that said “hearing” on her permanent record. Despite this status, Gallaudet fit her. “This is the place that I was supposed to go the whole time,” Peruzzi said.

Hearing students enrolled full time at Gallaudet are referred to by the University as HUGS, or Hearing Undergraduate Students. These students complete a yearlong American Sign Language course, since many times the student doesn’t know sign language at all.

“There are coffee chats and group chats to encourage them to learn how to sign and practice. The new signers program really supports people who are not native signers,” said Evans, the school spokeswoman.

There are also a number of students who attend the university simply to learn sign language. Jen Sparrow, a student at American University, is one of those students. She enrolled in a 100-level course on sign language at the encouragement of some of her deaf friends. While a few students in her class were taking it out of necessity, as they were going deaf, most were hearing students.

“They were mostly hearing students and just wanted to learn a new skill,” said Sparrow.

In 2006, Peruzzi went scuba diving for the first time. A malfunction occurred, causing her eardrum to rupture and extensive damage to her inner ear. She lost ten decibels of hearing, officially qualifying her as hearing impaired.

Not to be deterred by a bad experience, Peruzzi signed up for scuba diving as an elective her first semester at Gallaudet. Again, her eardrums ruptured and damage was done to her inner ear. She was left even more impaired.

Or was she? Peruzzi was already enrolled at a school designed for the deaf and hearing impaired. She was fluent in sign language. Peruzzi made the choice after her second scuba accident to remove the “hearing” label from her permanent record. Yet, she’s not sure if she is hearing or not. She wears an aid, and works as a translator, something that she could not do if she was completely deaf.

As a deaf studies major, Peruzzi is forced to think about her identity every day. “We’re studying about ourselves. Everyone is a potential subject and there is a tendency to take the scholarly literature more personally because of it,” Peruzzi said.

The result? She feels pressure to decide, “Am I deaf or not?” It’s an interesting dynamic of having to prove that one is deaf enough. She frequently blogs about this difficulty saying, “Now think about being hard of hearing. You either can hear, or you can’t. You don’t get to have a middle ground. You are either hearing (but have some problems) or deaf (but hear really well). You have to pick one…”

She’ll readily admit that her journey to Gallaudet has not been a straightforward or easy one. However, finally she’s found the right place regardless of how she defines herself.

“Yes. That is me. Neither hearing nor Deaf. In the middle, ambiguous, indeterminate. It feels good to understand this,” she blogs in her most recent post titled, “Validation!”